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Thursday, February 09, 2006

many many prints at Reynolds Gallery

There has been A LOT of printmaking to see in Richmond recently. Barbara Tisserat's show at the Hand Workshop, the current amazing collection of prints from the collection on exhibit at the Anderson Gallery, the current Carrie Mae Weems show at the Hand. I guess the Weems are prints, right? Prints or photographs? The card says "gelatin silver prints", I don't know what all the terms and techniques are.

Reynolds Gallery is showing a big selection of "prints by modern masters" through February -

Cute faces in the crowd of Marc Chagall'sLes Cyclistes, 1956

Here is another shot of the same Chagall lithograph. So much movement and circles and speckles.

Elizabeth Murray, Undoing, 1989-1990. Much greener in reality than this photograph shows. There are three wavy-edged pieces of paper, each consecutively smaller, placed one on top of the other. The smallest one (the one on top) has a hole cut out in the center, the middle sized sheet of paper has a smaller hole, and the biggest piece of paper (the bottom one) has the smallest hole. Maybe too much explanation on my part, but I liked seeing all these layers and overlapping with everything spinning around into that center whirlpool. Can you see the two uncorked green bottles releasing their spirits?

James Sienna has two prints hung near the corner opposite Chuck Close's portrait of him. Those look interesting together. I noticed that some of the prints - the Sienna's, a Clemente, a Frankenthaler - are all listed as being "ukiyoe style". The Sienna is a "thirteen color ukiyoe style woodcut", the Clemente a "twenty-two color ukiyoe style woodblock", and the Frankenthaler a "sixteen color ukiyoe style woodcut". What does that mean? I know that Ukiyo-e was a Japanese style, and that many woodblock prints were made in that style, but don't understand this as a printmaking term. All three of these artist's work is coming from Pace, did they just make up the term or something?

Wayne Thiebaud, Delicatessen (from Delights), etching, 1964. I like this one very much. I was drawn over to it thinking, "this is like that 1964 illustrationy stuff I like so much" - and it was dated 1964!!

Richard Serra has a black black textured piece called Extension #3, 2004. I like the whole thing but especially this area.

On the left you can see a teeny tiny black mark on the white wall.

On the right you can see a teeny tiny white speck of dust or something on the black etching.

Martin, Ukiyo-e, like many other forms of printmaking, first began as a style and was later co-opted into a technique. Ukiyo-e, according to various printmaking texts, means "pictures of the transient world of everyday life." It was a highly graphic multiple color style of printing in 17th century Japan. Essentially, for printmakers, it's a fancy way of discerning reduction print color woodblocks from the more technical and intensive multiple block color printing, where each layer of color is registered on a separate block, inked and then printed on paper. Some of those Chuck Close prints have 60+ layers of color on 'em.... amazing!-Judy